Artix Linux

Artix Linux is a fork (or continuation as an autonomous project) of the Arch-OpenRC and Manjaro-OpenRC projects. Artix Linux offers a lightweight, rolling-release operating system featuring the OpenRC init software. (An alternative spin features the runit init software.) Three editions of Artix are available, a minimal Base system, an edition featuring the i3 window manager and an edition which runs the LXQt desktop.

To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.

Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.

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Version: 2018.10.04Rating: 9Date: 2018-11-19Votes: 0

I'm glad I gave this some time to mature and iron out their bigger problems -- I remember migrating an Arch-OpenRC install a while back and having some major growing pains -- but they've been on my radar ever since and I've checked back now and again, and finally decided to give it a whirl on my main PC. Being such a comparatively small project it's no surprise that, here and there, you *will* need to do some work to make packages work. Not so much with what's in the main repos, but mostly with stuff residing in the AUR -- even moreso if you're using the less common runit spin as I am.

Thankfully usually the dummy systemd packages are usually enough to fake out even the more stubborn stuff (the Arch version of mate-system-monitor crashes/doesn't launch without systemd related libs) and I have been able to craft a stable, secure and best of all IMO systemd-free machine with the tools I've been given here. I was too lazy to spin up another Gentoo install and to be honest while I was usually left unsatisfied by one aspect or another, this doesn't seem to disappoint at least so far. Having the convenience of the AUR really cannot be understated, even if a couple of them need a little fiddling to get working. It's as close to "it just works" as this sort of thing gets. I knew what I was getting into when I decided I didn't want systemd on my machines.

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Version: 2018.10.04Rating: 10Date: 2018-11-04Votes: 21

Just tried it out of curiosity and it looks to be a solid distro which is lightweight and very fast. I tried it on a Hp elite 8200 core i5 desktop and its blazing fast. Installing it was easy as I have installed an Arch based distro before. Wifi connection works out of the box and its very fast.
I like its retro looking apperance. Its also a minimalist system so you will have to install some tools like galculator, libre office, gufw firewall etc. Only issue is that the Falcon web browser crashed a lot so I uninstalled it and installed Firefox and Opera.
I will try it on a Pentium 4 desktop just to see how it performs since it has the potential of reviving old computers because of its lightweight system.
This is quite an interesting project since its the only Arch based distro that I know of that is systemd free and its very fast.

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Version: 2018.10.04Rating: 8Date: 2018-11-01Votes: 1

Dead simple installer (Calamares), you can install Artix in 10 minutes. The distro itselft is Arch without systemd, you can choose between Runnit and OpenRc. Recently I installed the lxqt 64bit version and so far I'm satisfied: Artix is lighweight, fast, stable and of course up to date. I give an 8 because I still have to do some testing and see how stable actually it is. But so far Artix is a good distro. You may tray it if you like Arch.